


old ghosts

by gaywoodandbine



Series: episode codas [4]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode: s03e14: A Kiss From A Rose, Especially With Shadowhunters, Hurt Magnus Bane, Hurt but not a lot of comfort, M/M, Magnus Bane Has A Lot of Baggage, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 14:10:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18166211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaywoodandbine/pseuds/gaywoodandbine
Summary: The traumas of the past leave a mark.





	old ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you ever so much to June for cleaning this up and making sure my sleep-deprived writing made sense. <3

Magnus has never told Alec this, but the Institute is haunted. Not in the way that one would think. There aren’t spirits rattling chains up and down the hallways or spectral figures holding candelabras as they wail and moan in the middle of the night.

There are ghosts here of a different sort, violence inside these walls that screams and cries from every weathered stone. There are rooms in this building that make Magnus’s blood run cold. This old church is a mausoleum to the cruelty and hatred of the Nephilim.

Warlocks have long memories, but the Accords have only been in existence for a short time even for mortal lives. There are Shadowhunters still living who walked these halls in an era when their kind hunted Magnus and his people for sport. The Circle might have been a radicalized group of Nephilim extremists, but their views were not uncommon. Just not so loudly spoken.

Magnus remembers the bodies of friends and loved ones, left to rot like so much trash, marks ripped and torn and broken away, homes ransacked for their valuables. He remembers running, remembers huddled groups of frightened werewolves and vampires hiding from the patrols. He remembers nights when all he did was conjure portals, one after another after another, sending scared children and families to safe houses outside of New York. He remembers that sometimes it wasn’t enough. Sometimes it was too little, too late. 

Institutes were black sites. If you went in, you didn’t come out. The vault in the lower reaches of the prison ward still makes him sick to his stomach to think about.

This is Alexander’s home, and it is Magnus’s now for the foreseeable future.

He hates it.

It was tolerable when he could come and go as he pleased, visits to Alec’s office or to touch up the wards. Now though, he will sleep here. He will eat here. He will wake in the morning to sunlight through the stained-glass windows of Alec’s bedroom.

Magnus has always known who and what Alexander is: a Shadowhunter and a Lightwood and now the Head of the New York Institute. The differences between them have never really mattered to him. Alec is a good man, a better person than Magnus could have ever hoped to find. He is kind and loving and noble, and Magnus loves him more than life itself.

But the reminder that he is Nephilim is never more stark than when Magnus is inside these walls. There are times when that is attractive, when Alec is standing at the front of the Ops Center commanding respect in his stance and his voice as he rallies his troops, a king surveying his kingdom. When he is training and all that angelic strength and power is focused and honed on a single target.

But sometimes, Magnus forgets how easily Alec could destroy him.

He wouldn’t. Magnus knows he wouldn’t, trusts him with everything that he is. Had he been alive fifty years ago, though, raised in a world where the Accords didn’t exist, he might have. (What are the Accords anyway, other than a tenuous peace treaty that is overlooked whenever the Clave needs to step outside their bounds for a favorable outcome.)

Magnus stands in the middle of Alec’s room, watching as Alec putters about getting ready for bed. He could have gone to Catarina’s or bought another loft somewhere else. God knows he’s got the money. But Alexander asked, guilt thick in his voice. He still feels responsible, no matter that all of Magnus’s decisions are his own. Alec is determined to get his home back, wants to help in what way he can in the meantime, keep him close by his side. Magnus is helpless sometimes to tell him no.

Wrapping his arms around himself, he tries to fight off the feeling of cold that wants to sink into his skin.

Alec steps into his line of sight a minute later, reaching out to wrap his hands around Magnus’s waist. He gives a gentle tug and mumbles, “C’mere.”

Magnus steps in close, leaning into Alec’s body and letting himself unfold to wrap around Alec’s shoulders instead. He has magic back, but it isn’t his. His home is no longer his. He is a stranger to both.

Alec presses a kiss into his hair, arms squeezing around him. The pressure is welcome, as if it will keep him from drifting away at any moment.

“I’ll make this right, I promise,” Alec whispers.

Magnus’s mistakes are not Alec’s to fix, but he nods, anyway.

He stands in the arms of a Nephilim surrounded by ghosts, and he closes his eyes and shivers.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://gaywoodandbine.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/gaywoodandbine) if you'd like to come find me


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